Long-Listing Or Sifting Applications

Long-listing or Sifting Applications

Objective

This guide is intended to show you how NHS Jobs can help you sift a number of applications to reduce the number of applications that need to be read or reviewed.

Introduction

The features on NHS Jobs can be used to support long-listing by someone in the recruitment team so that the number of applications passed to the recruiting manager to review and shortlist is reduced. If your organisation does not perform this long-listing function in the recruitment team, the recruiting manager can also use these sifting features to process the applications without needing to read every application.

The features shown can be used to filter the list of applications to those that match the criteria so that they can be passed on to the next stage, or to those that match unwanted criteria so that they can be rejected at this stage.

Sifting applications

Where to start

To long-list or sift applications:

• Go to the vacancies list, select the ‘Applications: ’ link beside the relevant vacancy.

• Go to the My Tasks list, select the ‘Longlist applications’ link beside the relevant vacancy.

Overview

The list of applications for the vacancy will be listed along with their status. If your organisation does perform long-listing before recruiting managers review and shortlist, all new applications will have the status ‘New’ as shown. If your organisation does not perform long-listing in the recruitment team, then the new applications will have the status ‘In review’.

Applications can be viewed by clicking on the application reference number (the blue AR numbers above). The names beside the applications are only visible to members of the recruitment team at this stage. Names become visible to recruiting managers once shortlisting has been completed.

The list of applications can be sorted and filtered using the options in the right-hand panels. The ‘Sort by’ options change the order the applications are listed. The ‘View applications’ options filter the list of applications according to their status, or according to applicant attributes (such as those with a restricted account), or to a specific application reference number.

The filtering options for long-listing applications are accessed in the ‘Filtering questions’ panel.

Sifting applications is performed by applying a filter to the list of applications and then taking an action on the resulting reduced list of applications. The action can be to reject or to move to in review.

Any filter selections applied to the list can be removed and the list reset, without changing the status of any applications. Filtering selections can be made as many times as are needed.

How to filter applications

Select the ‘Show questions’ button in the ‘Filtering questions’ panel.

All the questions and answer options that can be used to filter applications are displayed on the Filtering Questions screen. This includes some questions that are on the standard application forms for all vacancies.

Any additional application form filtering questions that were selected before the vacancy was published are also available.

Select the answer options that you are looking for in the applications. In the case below we are looking for applications in which the applicant has answered that they do not have UK professional registration status.

Click on the green ‘Apply Filters’ button at the bottom of the page.

The list of applications is then displayed listing only those applications that match the filter terms. In this case there is only one application with the answer that they do not have UK professional registration status.

An action can now be taken with the resulting applications.

How to take action with applications

Select the ‘Actions’ button beside the application.

Click on the ‘Select all’ link and then select the ‘Group Actions’ button.

The application can be rejected or proceeded to review and shortlisting. When selecting the ‘Reject’ option the panel expands to provide reasons for rejecting the application. Select one or more reasons for rejecting the application or applications and select the green ‘Action’ button. In this case the reason for rejecting the application is ‘Registration’.

On clicking the ‘Action’ button the list of applications with the previous filter applied is displayed. Click to remove the tick from the ‘Use questions’ checkbox and click on the ‘View’ button to return to the full list of applications.

Alternatively, click on the ‘Show questions’ button and change the filtering selection. Repeat the filtering and actions as often as necessary to get to the preferred number of applications or to remove those applications that will not succeed.

Having rejected some applications in the example above, there are now three applications that have not been rejected. These can be quickly seen by applying the ‘New’ filter selection in the ‘View applications’ panel. Click on ‘Select all’ and then on ‘Group Actions’.

The ‘proceed to review/shortlisting action can be taken on these applications.

All applications have now been moved to ‘In Review’ or are at the status of ‘Rejection Pending’. ‘Rejection Pending’ indicates that it has been decided to reject the application, but as shortlisting is not completed it is still pending completion of shortlisting.

Once an application has been submitted the applicant can see it’s status of ‘Submitted’. The application remains in this status, as far as the applicant can see, until shortlisting has been completed. Once shortlisting is completed the unsuccessful applicants will be able to see if their applications are ‘Unsuccessful’ and once an applicant has been invited to interview their status indication will be “Invited to interview’.